Eh.. eh, calm down, calm down (for best effect should be said in a scouse accent, but most of you lot would need a translator for that ).

Anyway, bread yeast will do fine, you can often get it to the 12% mark, but I've also read posts with people moaning about bready sort of flavour, and as thats not my experience with it, I can only conclude that comes from it being a bugger to rack. It produces a fluffy sediment that will come back into suspension if you sneeze too close to the fermenter.

That is a downside of bread yeast. Grandpa used gelatin to clear his, and I prefer fruits (the pectin does a great job).

And for the record, ANYONE who is starting off with brewing, I recommend try different stuff and find the one you like best. I make my mead the way my grandpa did, before there were LHBS in town with fancy refrigerated smack packs of strains of yeast for wine, mead, cider, etc... and esoteric honeys from the southwest... There are ways to make something fantastic from simple ingredients. There is also fantastic meads made with fancy yeasts, honey, etc... you have to try different things to perfect the way you want it.

Some fruits work better in mead than others and I usually use at least a pound of fruit per gallon, at least for the several melomels that I've done.

I think if I were you I'd consider racking to tertiary at some point to get the mead off the lees. Though I think it was Chevettegirl who said she let a JAOM sit for nearly a year so maybe it'll be ok.

Some fruits work better in mead than others and I usually use at least a pound of fruit per gallon, at least for the several melomels that I've done.

I like raspberry the best. I use 8-10oz (frozen) per gallon. More than that and I feel the raspberry takes over and masks the unique fermented honey flavor. Strawberry is good to, but on that one I use 1lb/gal, same for apricot.

I did one last year of frozen local wildberry mix at 12oz gal, and it was rediculously tasty. Wish I had more of those berries

Quote:

Originally Posted by Illuveatar

I think if I were you I'd consider racking to tertiary at some point to get the mead off the lees. Though I think it was Chevettegirl who said she let a JAOM sit for nearly a year so maybe it'll be ok.

Once the main fermentation is done, I rack off. Let that sit in secondary by itself a month, then rack onto the fruit. Let that sit until its 'done'...

I did do a JAOM that I let sit untouched for over a year. It was delicious also.

I think raspberry is probably my favorite too, I guess I don't have the finesse to balance the fruit with the "unique fermented honey flavor" I usually just fruit the heck out of it. Maybe I'll tone it down a touch in my next batch.

Well... I made four separate 1 gallon batches... 1st batch I used 2 navel oranges cut into eighths. 2nd batch, same deal only with honeycrisp apples instead of oranges. Third batch I used 3 ripe peaches cut into eighths. Fourth batch I used red and white seedless grapes cut into halves, probably about a pound worth. So far I am 11 days in, and the primary ferment seems to be going very well, all are still vigorously bubbling, and are dropping a nice layer of sediment... I will probably rack them off about ten days from now, or when the ferment seems to have stopped, whichever comes first.

Wait until ghe bubbling really slows down, like alot. Unless your sitting on a lot of lees, like an inch( I never used bread yeast so I'm kinda accounting for the fluffy). You really only rack to get off old yeast or pull out fruit starting to get real " ripe", if its not for those reasons your just playing with it, and that's a bad habit.

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If you want to drink the best booze, your gonna have to make it yourself.
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Gotcha. I do have a considerable amount of lees in a couple of the jugs, surprisingly, they are the ones that are still bubbling strong! I'm going to take the advice though, because at this point the fruit is still in good shape. Thanks

Sorry folks, the hustle and bustle of everyday life has kept me off of here for a while... so at this point, I racked off about 2 weeks ago, added some fill water, fresh fruit, and did a little back sweetening. Everything is bubbling once again... at this point I'm not doing anything else with it until the fruit drops. I did take a little taste of each while racking off, gotta say... even though the products aren't quite finished yet, they are quite delicious.